A Life Least Expected
by Agent Malkere
Summary: Princess Daphne reflects on the strange twists and unexpected turns her life has taken.


_**A Life Least Expected**_

 _By Agent Malkere_

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon's Lair in any way, shape or form, but I am definitely buying tickets if they finally make it into a movie.**

Daphne glanced out the window with a sigh, but it was a contented sigh. She wasn't very good at being a housewife. Well, Daphne was fairly certain she wasn't very good at being a housewife. Dirk hadn't said anything on the matter, but Daphne had her suspicions. Good housewives probably didn't burn two meals out of every three. She was getting better, though – she used to just burn everything.

It wasn't like Daphne had ever been taught how to keep a house. She'd been _taught_ how to be a princess. Her parents were still highly unimpressed with her life choices. Living in a little cottage on a farm trying to figure out how to cook was certainly _not_ what they had envisioned for her.

Daphne finished drying the pot in her hands and set it aside. As a child, she never would have imagined a future for herself where she would be washing dishes and _enjoying_ it. But then again, her younger self also never could have anticipated Dirk.

Dirk the Daring, the most surprising knight in her father's court. Knighted for his spectacular acts of valor at the Battle of Ignari and before her father became aware that the man had a speech impediment so bad he was practically a functional mute and a crippling fear of strangers her wasn't supposed to be stabbing with his sword. It made him uniquely unsuitable for court life and politics. Of course, by the time the king noticed any of this, it was too late – Dirk had already been knighted.

Daphne hadn't really noticed Dirk at first either. She'd been too busy flitting around the castle flirting with any man who stood still long enough, and Dirk had been busy avoiding everyone over the age of twelve. For some reason, children seemed to be drawn to Dirk, and the feeling was mutual. And that was how Daphne finally noticed him.

She'd snuck away from her French lessons again (honestly, she was twenty, would the tutors never leave her alone?) and had been on her way to go flirt with the captain of the palace guards. He was a big, brawny man with rugged features, massive arms, and a surprisingly well groomed goatee, and he was always happy to entertain a wayward princess who had had her fill of the French language. He also let her hide in the guardhouse when her tutor inevitably came looking for her.

A clatter and bout of childish laughter caught Daphne's attention as she hurried down a hall. She had paused and glanced out one of the narrow windows. A group of young stable hands had been gathered in the court yard below in a rough circle. At the center of the circle had been one of the younger boys and that new knight whom Daphne had rarely ever glimpsed outside of meals and never spoken to. The knight was thin with broad shoulders, short, dark hair, and ridiculously large feet. He had a wooden practice sword in one hand, and another had been lying in the dust in front of him. He had bent down, picked up the fallen practice sword, and then tossed it in the air with an easy flick of the wrist. He caught it by the blade and then offered it hilt first to the stable boy. The boy had accepted it and then taken a hesitant ready stance. The knight had frowned and then started correcting the boy's position with his hands and a few halting comments that Daphne had been too far away to hear.

Daphne had felt a smile pulling at her mouth. He was teaching them to fence. The captain of the palace guard could wait – this was far more interesting.

And that was how Dirk the Daring had acquired his very own royal stalker. Mostly because for the first two months Dirk went running in the opposite direction every time he caught a glimpse of Daphne.

Daphne had found his affection for children intriguing and his apparent attempts to avoid her highly diverting. It helped that Dirk was rather handsome in his own way. And then he had stopped running away from her.

He'd given her wild flowers and told her about himself in short, hard-won sentences. Daphne found him charming and the doofy smile he got when she kissed his cheek adorable and endearing. By the time her parents realized that Daphne was being courted by the least suitable knight in the court, it had been far too late. Both of them were already in love.

Unfortunately, Daphne needed her father's approval if she wanted to get married, and the king wasn't about to give it. Daphne had been at a loss as to what to do.

And then Daphne had been kidnapped by a dragon while in her… um… night clothes. Yes, in her night clothes and definitely not in the middle of an ill-fated attempt at seducing Dirk so that her father would _have_ to let them get married.

Daphne had not appreciated being suspended in a bubble in the dragon's hoard wearing her very revealing and drafty leotard. At least she didn't have to stand in the heels she had chosen. Shouldn't magical bubbles created by fire-breathing lizards be warmer? Dirk rescuing her, though? That had been perfect. Because Dirk was a knight, and Daphne was a princess, and her family's kingdom actually had a _law_ about that. Any knight who rescued a princess from a dragon had to be offered that princess's hand in marriage.

Daphne had been thrilled, her parents had been horrified, and Dirk had just been glad the dragon hadn't decided to eat her instead.

Her parents hadn't been able to prevent the union, but Dirk had been deemed too embarrassing a son-in-law to keep around the castle full-time. So their gift to the two newlyweds had been the cottage where Daphne and Dirk now lived and the surrounding farmland. As it turned out, Dirk far preferred the farm to life in the royal court, and Daphne was more than ready to experience life beyond the castle walls. There was a general understanding that the two were to return for important events or if Dirk were called on to perform any of his duties as a knight.

Daphne put aside her final dish and glanced out the window again. Dirk had finished feeding the animals and was practicing with his sword a bit before he moved on to tending the garden. She always enjoyed watching him. Honestly, she was the luckiest woman in the world. It didn't matter that her hands weren't as soft as they used to be or that one of her neighbors was teaching her how to wash her own clothes or that Daphne pulled back her long blonde hair these days to be practical rather than simply pretty.

Daphne was just considering the problem that was lunch when there was a soft rustling by the door. Dirk was returning his sword to its place on the wall. He was dusty, and a few damp tendrils of hair clung to his forehead. He wandered over, rested his hand against her arm, brushed his lips against her cheek. She caught his chin and turned his head so that she could give him a proper kiss on the lips. Dirk obliged, and there was that doofy smile Daphne loved so much.

Truly, life was grand, and Daphne wouldn't have it any other way.


End file.
